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Inhabitants of Yorkshire: Barkstone Ash wapentake
(1379)The poll tax returns for this wapentake, the area around Selby, Sherburn-in-Elmet and Tadcaster.

DYCSON. Cost: £6.00.

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Inhabitants of Yorkshire: Morley wapentake
(1379)The poll tax returns for this wapentake, the area around Bradford and Halifax.

DYCSON. Cost: £6.00.

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Inhabitants of Yorkshire: Skyrack wapentake
(1379)The poll tax returns for this wapentake, the area around Bingley and Otley.

DYCSON. Cost: £6.00.

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Lichfield Diocese Ordinations: Acolytes Secular
(1505)The diocese of Coventry and Lichfield at this period included the whole of Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire; all Lancashire south of the Ribble; northern Shropshire (including Shrewsbury); and northern Warwickshire (including Birmingham and Coventry). Ordinations took place on the four Ember Saturdays in the year, and on certain other occasions; lists of ordinands to the degrees of acolyte, subdeacon, deacon and priest were preserved in the ordination registers, a distinction being made between those clerks who were 'regular', i. e., monks, friars, &c., and those who were 'secular', the main body of the clergy. All ordinands were celibate, and those regular, and the secular who obtained benefices, remained so, but only a minority of the secular ordinands ever obtained benefices, and most will doubtless have married later in life. No man might be ordained to subdeacon or higher without proving either that he was of independent means or that he was sponsored by an institution or a gentleman. Most entries in the register of such ordinations therefore have the words 'ad titulum' followed by the name of the religious house that was the sponsor. This is an important indication of the man's origins - boys whose families were monastic tenants, and who were educated by the monks, would naturally be sponsored by the abbey. Only men who were born and bred in the diocese could be ordained by the bishop, unless producing letters dimissory from the bishop of the diocese of their birth. These are the ordinations celebrated on Ember Saturday, 15 February 1505 by Thomas bishop of Panados (Pavados), suffragan of bishop Geoffrey Blythe, in Lichfield cathedral.

DYCSON. Cost: £8.00.

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Temple Newton Archers
(1539)In anticipation of war with France, Henry VIII ordered a general muster of able-bodied men throughout the kingdom. That for the wapentake of Skyrack, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, took place at Wike (near Leeds) before sir William Gascoigne the elder, sir William Middleton and sir William Maleverer, on 26 March 1539. Skyrack wapentake consisted of the ancient parishes of Aberford, Adel, Bardsey, Barwick in Elmet, Bingley, Collingham, Garforth, Guiseley, Harewood, (part of) Ilkley, Kippax, Otley, Swillington and Thorner, as well as the borough of Leeds. This muster roll listing the archers, billmen and spearmen of the wapentake by township or constablewick, was preserved among the State Papers in the Public Record Office; it was edited by W. Paley Baildon, and printed in three issues of the Miscellanea of the Thoresby Society (volumes 4 and 9) through to 1899. For each township there is a list of archers, divided into those fully and those partly ('parcel') armoured ('harnessed'), and a similar list of billmen; a few spearmen also appear. The weapon of the billmen - the bill or halberd - was a blade with a long wooden handle, sometimes with a hook with a cutting edge added at one side. This return includes the hamlets of Halton and Colton.